For counterfeiting prevention, systems and methods for authenticating of components are known. Counterfeiting of components may involve repurposing, remarking or recycling used components along a supply chain. As such, a counterfeit component may pass all production testing, but its reliability may be affected because the part may be near the end of its useful life when it is installed. For this reason, counterfeit components pose a very high risk especially when such components are used in sensitive applications, such as national defense, military or intelligence.
Known marking, authentication and anti-counterfeiting technologies use taggants comprising chemical or physical markers. Some taggants consist of microscopic particles built up in many layers, which are made of different materials. Other taggants can be engineered particles with unique structures, chemical signatures, photo emission characteristics or combinations of these that can be added to plastics or inks. Unique micro-structures can be read using microscopes. Chemicals or nano-structures that have spectral-shift characteristics can be illuminated and read by specially tuned readers. But readers that must be matched to specific taggants limit the variation that can be applied to components and the options for reading them.
For example, Authentix™ (www.authentix.com) has commercialized several taggant technologies and offers authentication and security solutions for food, pharmaceutical and manufactured goods. Authentix's taggant technology uses magnetic ink that includes magnetic particles that are applied to individual components. InkSure™ (www.inksure.com) has developed a unique chemical signature technology that is recognized by US courts as a viable, forensic method for identifying material sources. Applied DNA Sciences (www.adnas.com) offers marking and authentication solutions based on chemically modified (and inherently randomized) botanical DNA. This technology adds phosphors to marking solutions for low-level authentication and use well-developed DNA sequencing technologies to verify the authenticity of marked components. 3M offers a line of holographic authentication products that can be added to products or packaging.
One known authentication system and method described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,286,551 uses pieces of magnetic material to produce magnetic fields for orienting pigments in ink. Under this prior art, a printing machine has a transfer system for conveying a substrate onto an impression cylinder. A screen of cylindrical or flat shape with a doctor blade, collaborates with the impression cylinder to print the substrate with an ink containing pigments that can be orientated by a magnetic field. An unloading system carries the substrate away. The impression cylinder has a magnetic element on its impression surface, that is positioned at a point corresponding to impression performed by the screen on the substrate.
Currently available authentication techniques, however, offer partial solutions and cannot be broadly deployed across complex supply chains. For example, the processes of creating complex chemical signatures such as DNA occur in centralized facilities in batches. This limits the number of changes that can be made to the marking other than varying concentrations of multiple batches during component marking. Use of magnetic pieces is cumbersome and not easily varied. Ideally, a complete authentication would be changeable more frequently and not require the synthesis of complex chemicals, micro-scale printing or fixed micro-scale structures or magnetic pieces. DNA-based authentication requires removing a sample of the DNA-bearing material to detect the presence of the correct code using laboratory sequencing machines. Further, authentication that requires laboratories limits the ability to increase inspection.
Ideally, a marking technology would contain enough information to provide authentication and be expensive to copy, but not require laboratory analysis. Holographic printing techniques are widely available, but can be mimicked and have costs that are well over 0.01 per component.
Thus, there exists a need to inexpensively deliver secure authentication, rapid, automated screening throughout the supply chain and ultimately facilitate the elimination of purchases containing counterfeit components.